The Moment
by Dessmond Williams
Summary: The Timewar changed everything. It changed the Daleks, the Timelords. But above all else, it changed the Doctor.


_**Obligatory Copyright message here: I don't own anything in this. Praise be to Moffat and Doctor Who and all that good stuff.**_

* * *

A blue wooden police box, scorn and damaged from countless battles and skirmishes stood atop a small, blackened hill within the once pristine Rift Valley on the once peaceful planet of Gallifrey. Gallifrey, a planet once revered in the universe as the care takers of time, Sentinels of Eternity now stood a barren wasteland of dead bodies, crumbling buildings, and forgotten peace. All around the box lay scattered the fallen wreckage of ships and machines that had either fallen from orbit, or never made it off the ground at all. The buildings and homes were ablaze with the fires of war, and the bodies of the dead littered the streets and pathways of the large village. A stark contrast to the bustling center of commerce it used to be in it's prime, with it's shimmering ivory buildings that seemed to ripple in the suns light.

From the bottom of the hill, a man with the most ridiculously curly hair came running dressed in the dark grey fatigues of the Gallifreyan Navy, though slightly less grey around his chest where a very apparent hole lived. A great explosion, likely from one of the Proto-Plasma Artillery Units in the valley's cliffs, rocked and tore through the land around him, which sent him staggering. The front doors of the police box swung open with great force, the rank taste of death and destruction seeping the TARDIS, the Doctor ignoring it as he had been while he ran into the TARDIS. The thunderous noise from the shelling of the outside world echoed throughout her Gothic halls, making the tortured and chaotic screams of the Gallifreyan's caught in the blast zone all the more horrific. With staggered steps the Doctor reached for one of the inlets of the pillars to steady himself. Moving with the aid of adrenaline, he shambled forward with determination and purpose.

His curly locks fell into his eyes, he brushed them aside as he slowly inched toward the control panel, the adrenaline leaving his system, caked with sweat and blood, not all of which was his. As he moved, he lost his balance and collapsed to the ground in a heap of exhaustion. Laying there, the horrid, hateful, terrifying voices shouted from the open door of the TARDIS. They were metallic, cold, angry, violent...the voices of demons themselves come to drag him back to hell.

"PRIORTY TARGET LOCATED! EXTERMINATE ON SITE! EXTERMINATE! EXTER-"

The TARDIS slammed her doors shut in a bid to keep her oldest companion and dearest friend safe. Even here, in this time of great peril and destruction, she watched over him. With a hallow laugh from the Doctor, seeing the irony in what the TARDIS had just done, protecting him from destruction, so that he may in turn destroy. He heaved him self up along one of the many pillars dotting the control room. Purpose driven, he managed to ignore the gaping, bloodied hole in his chest, given to him by one of the Gallifreyan Senatorial Honor Guard's lance that had been the cause of his pain for the past few minutes. With a steely glint in his usually boisterous eyes, he carried on with his excruciating journey to the control panel. The blood dripped from his wound, slowly seeping into the fine Persian rugs that surrounded the base of the console.

With a grunt from the Doctor, he set about to leave Gallifrey, his home...for the last time. With practiced grace, even while injured, he moved around the console, making preparations to flee. With every flick of a switch and every push of a button, the memories of old were coming back to him. Playing in the Southern Fields with Koschei, stirring up trouble together. He and Romana studying in the Great Hall together into the wee hours of the morning. His first time cradling Suzan not an hour after her birth.

The final lever was thrown back with an echoing finality, and the Doctor needed to close his eyes as he dematerialized from this planet for the final time. His TARDIS wheezed away through the Time Vortex and he shambled off down one of the many corridors into the bowels of the TARDIS. As he dragged his dying, pale body down the winding maze of hallways the Doctor reflected on the actions that brought him to this point. The War had brought so many terrible tragedies, so many massacres and genocides, it was as if the universe was wounded. The Fall of Arcadia, where he brought the might of his fleet down onto a continent being held hostage by the Daleks, killing billions the first day, and millions more the next. The First Battle of Skaro, where the skies had been so full of debris and bodies it blocked out the sun and bore rise to the Nightmare Child. When Romana had ordered him to destroy the Li-Zeta system, killing a world not even advanced enough to know of literature, and only on the suspicion that the Skaro Shock Battalion might be hiding there. So many lives taken, so many worlds bled dry by his own hands. He was not a Doctor anymore. He was a Warrior, a charging behemoth of death and destruction wherever he went...an Oncoming Storm.

The silent contemplation came to an end, he had reached the Hall. With a mustering of strength and a surge of pain, he threw the doors open, collapsing into them. The wound was growing too much for him, with every step sending agonizing jolts of pain across his being. Already he could feel the energies building for his regeneration, a stark irony to his actions. Gathering all his strength for his Final Mission, he crawled across the Great Hall. His blood smeared across the floor, leaving trail of dark crimson in his wake. He reached the steps, vision blurring. His hearts pounded in his ears like the drums of war that still beat outside. The Eye was already opened, it's massive dome spread apart. The TARDIS, always helping even in his darkest hour. She whispered to him, a chant of wheezes and rumblings, as she urged him on. With his last ounce of strength, he removed the Moment from his pocket. It was simple, unassuming. Nothing more than a crystal cube about the size of his palm, covered in Olde High Gallifreyan lettering. The war that ragged out around his tiny blue box, would be ended by something so small? A quaint thought to be sure. He moved his blood soaked hand over the Eye of Harmony and, with the greatest of doubts, let it fall.

In that moment, even as he left the Kasterborous Constellation he could hear them. The sound of trillions of lives burning across all of space and time burning in a raging, blistering, fire of their own making. A fire that rages for all of time, and even after the last particles cease to have motion, it's echos will remain. All of his friends, his family...his grand-daughter, lost by his own hands. The Doctor's final act of evil was to condemn them to eternal Hell. The facade of strength gone, he broke, sobbing with a new found energy. As his hands began to glow with the beginning of regeneration, he looked at his bloodied hands with tears in his eyes. He would forever live with the guilt, the pain, the shame of what he had done.

With the last breath of his eighth form, The Doctor uttered a phrase he would come to know quite intimately in the days to come. A phrase he would repeat until the day he wouldn't be able to run any longer, until his hearts could give no more mercy or compassion. Just two little words, the words of a murderer and executioner.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

_**A/N: Thanks to GKingOfFez for her wonderful help with betaing this and showing how wonderful descriptions are! Seriously, thanks G! Anyway, I know what you might be thinking, "What is the Moment?" Well...I don't know. I kinda like the idea of it just being something so powerful, so ancient it eludes even the Timelords. Anyway, thanks for reading, leave a review if you're so inclined!  
**_


End file.
